Category: Apple

Apple Announces iOS 7

Apple has just announced “the biggest change since the launch of the original iPhone” ; iOS 7. The new interface is beautifully designed with a new layer of colors and icons. Transparency plays an important role here, along with gestures.

Folders have pages, for multiple apps and the Game Center now does not have any green felt.

Notification center has a today view and can be accessed from the lock screen. But the most awaited feature : control center has been made available , simply swipe from below and all your quick toggles are front and center even from the lock screen.

Multitasking is available to all Apps now, allowing better battery life.

Apple Apps

reading

game center

Notification center

control center

App updates

dialer and phone

iOS now features Air Drop, allowing sharing of files through wifi just like on mac. Select multiple people by tapping, “no need to run around the room bumping your phone” hah.

The new features of Safari from Mac have been brought to the iOS, tabs reading lists, auto fill keychains and passwords.

The new Camera allows square cropped photos with filters for apps like Instagram, along with new Photos app which features moments and collections for better organization of photos. Of Course sharing of

Siri now has been updated to look great and do more functions, Siri also has a new voice in both male and female tones.

Siri can now Increase Brightness and toggle functions.

more developing..

June 11, 2013
Apple shows a sneak peak of the next generation Mac Pro (PR)

Apple usually does not do this but when the time came Apple just showed off its next generation of Mac Pro, in a beautiful cylindrical form factor. Almost 1/8th the size of the original Mac Pro with lots of improvements with the most important being a new cylindrical design.

Built around a new thermal diffusion design, the new hardware comes with a 12-core, 256-bit Intel Xeon processor, with 1,866MHz DDR3 Memory and 60GBps performance.

Thunderbolt 2 with 20Gbps throughput and Flash Hard drive. The new Mac Pro will support dual GPUs and will also support upto 3 4K displays simultaneously. With only a preview available, launch dates and prices not announced, we can only wait and watch.

Apple’s answer to those with doubts ” No More Innovation : My Ass”.

[toggle title=”Press Release”]Apple Gives Sneak Peek Into the Future of the Pro Desktop

SAN FRANCISCO—June 10, 2013—Apple today showed a sneak peek into the future of the pro desktop with a first look at the next generation Mac Pro. Designed around a revolutionary unified thermal core, the Mac Pro introduces a completely new pro desktop architecture and design that is optimised for performance inside and out. With next generation Xeon processors, dual workstation-class GPUs, Thunderbolt 2, PCIe-based flash storage, and ultra-fast ECC memory, the new 9.9-inch tall Mac Pro packs an amazing amount of power into an incredibly small package.

“With the latest Xeon processors, dual FirePro GPUs, ECC memory, PCIe-based flash and Thunderbolt 2, all built around a revolutionary thermal core, the next generation Mac Pro is the most radical Mac yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “All this performance and expandability is packed into a dramatic new design that’s one-eighth the volume, and best of all, it will be assembled here in the USA.”

The next generation Mac Pro is architected around an ingenious unified thermal core that allows the desktop to efficiently share its entire thermal capacity across all the processors. The result is a pro desktop with breakthrough performance packed into a design that is one-eighth the volume of the current Mac Pro. Next generation Intel Xeon E5 processors with up to 12 core configurations deliver double the floating point performance. With two AMD FirePro workstation-class GPUs, the all-new Mac Pro is up to 2.5 times faster than the current Mac Pro and delivers up to an amazing 7 teraflops of compute power. The new Mac Pro also features PCIe-based flash storage that is up to 10 times faster than conventional desktop hard drives and includes the latest four-channel ECC DDR3 memory running at 1866 MHz to deliver up to 60GBps of memory bandwidth.* With all that power, the new Mac Pro lets you seamlessly edit full-resolution 4K video while simultaneously rendering effects in the background.

The next generation Mac Pro is the most expandable Mac ever built. With six Thunderbolt 2 ports that can deliver up to 20Gbps of bandwidth to each external device, Mac Pro is perfect for connecting to external storage, multiple PCI expansion chassis, audio and video breakout boxes, and the latest external displays, including 4K desktop displays. Each of the six Thunderbolt 2 ports supports up to six daisy-chained devices, giving you the ability to connect up to 36 high-performance peripherals. Thunderbolt 2 is completely backwards compatible with existing Thunderbolt peripherals, and allows you to transfer data between Macs faster and easier than ever.

The next generation Mac Pro will be available later this year. To learn more, visit www.apple.com/mac-pro.

*Performance claims are based on technical specifications of preproduction Mac Pro hardware as of June 2013.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
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June 10, 2013
WWDC : iWork Introduced For iCloud

At its WWDC event today, Apple introduced iWork for iClouds.

Roger Rosner came up on stage to show off the new service. iWork is Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Most powerful productivity apps ever created for a mobile device. Awesome new releases of Mac and iOS iWork suites coming later this year.

iWork for iCloud lets you create beautiful documents right in the browser on Mac or PC. iCloud homepage now has new iWork app icons. Work on Pages right in the browser.

He showed off editing a spreadsheet in Numbers, full Keynote editing and animations right in a browser window.

IE, Chrome and Safari. iWork on all your devices — create a document on the Mac, edit on a PC, and present from the iPhone.

You can check out the beta version at beta.icloud.com. Public beta coming with general release later this year.

June 10, 2013
Apple Announces Multiple Displays on OS X Mavericks

Apple has updated the Mac OS X and the next version has been named after the California Mavericks.

With three things highlighted, changes: Finder Tabs, Tags and new changes to Multiple displays. With the new multiple displays you can independently run 3 different computers from the same machine.

With individual control spaces and Mission control on each display. The top menu and dock are also independent for each display and can be called on the live display.

When the user shifts through spaces, this will no longer affect all displays, and will only affect the live display.

More features of the Mac OS X Mavericks are being announced and expect a full reload soon.

June 10, 2013
Breaking : Apple Updates the Macbook Air

Apple events are usually unexpected, and at the WWDC 2013 Apple has launched the new Macbook Air. Based on the new Intel Haswell chipsets, Apple is promising full day of battery life.

With the 11 inch you get 9 hours of Battery Backup, and with the 13 inch you get 12 hours of working time on the new Macbook Air.

With prices for the next Macbook Air starting at us $ 999 for the 128 GB and US $ 1199 for the 256 GB

More developing…..

June 10, 2013
WWDC : OS X Mavericks Announced

At its WWDC event today, Apple announced the next edition of its Mac OS, the OS X Mavericks.

The previous edition, the Mountain Lion, launched last year, shipped 28 million copies. 35% of Mac users are using Mountain Lion. In comparison, 8% of Windows users are using Windows 8.

Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President Software Engineering, came on stage to talk about the OS X Mavericks : ” We want names that will carry us for the next ten years. The answer was really obvious. It’s those places that inspire us here in California. For our first California themed release, we went to OS X Mavericks.”

OS X Mavericks is released a with deep technology focus on extending battery life and responsiveness.

The first big feature of OS X Mavericks is the new tabs feature in the Finder – Safari-esque tabs that can drag content across tabs. Finder now goes full screen as well.

The next new feature is ‘Tags’ — As the name states, it brings tagging to the Mac. In addition to its location and name, you can tag a file. It’ll appear right in the Finder sidebar. You can tag things wherever they are. This is a really great feature for Power Searches.

Federighi then showcased the Multiple Displays feature – you can get your menus across multiple displays. Your dock is accessed across multiple displays and when you take an app full screen, it doesn’t mess with your desktop on the other display. If you have an AirPlay connected HDTV, it can act as a full-powered HD display with individual control spaces and Mission control on each display.

OS X Mavericks features Timer Coalescing: When you look at battery life, the real factor that software has the most influence over is CPU activity. “Intelligently align work reducing transitions between idle and work mode.” It reduces CPU utilization up to 72%.

New Safari

Clean new homepage in Safari, new sidebar, browser right from bookmarks, Reading List. It also features Shared Links: See links posted by people you’re following on Twitter or LinkedIn. It also features 60fps scrolling.

App Nap shuts off CPU work when a window is unseen in the background. If a window is covered, the CPU stops processing as much, saving battery life.

Calendar on the Mac has been redesigned with a flat redesign. “No virtual cows were harmed in the making of this UI. We’ll be adding that to our environmental checklist.”

Improvements to notifications: Can reply within notifications for emails and messages, can delete emails from notifications.

New Maps – Maps team has been making great improvements and Mac users are going to benefit. Fantastic new Maps app. Street maps, 3D, flyover data, POI, info cards, turn by turn directions.

“Mavericks makes your digital life follow you from device to device.” Remembers what page you’re reading, remembers your passwords across devices. Bookmark location and travel routes. Fantastic release full of some great features for power users.

Final release coming this fall.

More features coming up!

June 10, 2013
Apple Store Down: New Hardware Launches Imminent

The Apple Online Store is down, and this usually only happens – pre event – when Apple is about to launch some new hardware. While iOS 7 and Mac OS X updates are in tow, looks like new goodies also might be headed our way. With only just minutes for the Live event to begin. We just cant wait to see what is up Apple’s sleeve, a new iWatch perhaps?

[Apple Store]

June 10, 2013
Apple WWDC iOS 7 and MAC OS 10.9 Event happens today : What to Expect

Its 2013, and what has been almost 6 years from the announcement of the original iPhone back in 2007, Apple will today announce a new version of iOS deemed “iOS 7”. WWDC or the Worldwide Developer Conference is Apple’s yearly conference with its developers to show off what the company has designed for the developers to make functional apps in the oncoming year.

Apple iOS 7

Apple’s prized possession; the mobile os to power their extremely popular portables, has led the company for over 5 years into undeniable success. This year around John Ive’ design philosophy takes over that of Scott Forstall, which makes the design exceptions of the iOS 7 a lot flatter vs the skeuomorph designs of Forstall.

Apple may also change their closed nature towards third party apps allowing them to be set as default apps (eg. presently default browser cannot be changed from Safari), this might make the experience of iOS 7 a lot more personal.

Apple removed all Google based apps from the default apps list on iOS, including Youtube and Maps to replace with their own, this time around we are hearing of partnerships with Yahoo to provide Flickr integration along with Tumbler posting, possibly directly from the notification panel, a spot presently secured by Facebook and Twitter.

There is a also a possibility of Apple integrating quick toggles in the Notification panel or even as direct apps, something that would be widely appreciated.

Apple has also signed a deal with Sony Music among other major music companies, enabling the possibility of “iRadio” a music streaming service directly from Apple. As “the Guardian” points out a mix of iRadio and Genius playlists would put Apple in the forefront of all competition simply because the Genius playlists would automatically play music like the music you already like listening to.

Mac OS X (10.9)

Apple will also announce the next version of Mac OS dubbed 10.9 and will also include a Lion in its commercial name, this iteration of the OS for their portables and desktop is expected to be midway between a tablet and a pc, allowing more direct availability of Apps.

Apple is also expect to update key features of the OS, including notification center and Siri Integration within the OS.

Other Expectations and Rumors

iWatch : Apple wearable control device which has been heavily rumored ever since Apple changed the design of the multitouch iPod Nano from the Square watch band friendly to a vertical more media player-esque design. Although a wearable Apple product sounds interesting, many previous editions have failed to grab market attention.

Apple TV: Apple has also been toying with the TV industry for years hinting at a piece of hardware that will revolutionize the Television industry. Whether this “Jesus TV” will ever be launched is unknown. But Apple will need to update its current gen Apple TV (box), so atleast a refresh of the 100 $ TV is expected.

App Ecosystem: Rumors have suggested in the past that Apple will launch a better App Store allowing more flexibility in a way a user buys an app. Possible examples could include renting of Apps and even trial periods as seen on Windows Phone.

While it is almost always impossible to know what Apple has up its sleeve, it is almost certain that no new iDevice hardware is expected to be launched at WWDC, no new iPhone, iPad or even iPOD is expected. But, with everything so well under wraps, the world might just be shocked as Tim Cook walks onto stage with a shiny new hardware, that may set to create yet another category in the buying space. We will get you all the details during the launch.

June 10, 2013
With Sony Deal Done, Apple To Reveal iRadio At WWDC Today

Apple and Sony Music have reportedly inked a deal, moving Cupertino’s anticipated iRadio service another step forward.

According to All Things Digital — which cited a person familiar with the companies’ negotiations — this means Apple now has the support of all three major music labels, including Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group.

With the record companies on board, Apple plans to announce an advertising-supported service that will compete with Pandora Media for listeners. iRadio will allow users to build custom stations based on an artist or genre that draws on music from the company’s iTunes library. Apple’s agreement with Sony Music was reported by AllThingsD. Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a joint venture of Sony and the estate of Michael Jackson, signed its agreement with Apple, CEO Marty Bandier said in an interview.

The majors publishers had looked like they were going to be the holdout because Apple initially offered to pay them a rate of 4.1% of its advertising revenue, while the publishers had been withdrawing digital rights from the U.S. performance rights organizations BMI and ASCAP because they wanted higher rates. BMG, Sony/ATV, UMPG and Warner/Chappell executives had privately said they were seeking rates of 10%-15% of iRadio’s advertising revenue. But when Apple agreed to a 10% rate, Warner/Chappell last week signed the deal and now so has Sony/ATV.

Google also recently stepped into the streaming Internet radio market with All Access , which launched in May. The search company’s subscription music service is expected to debut on iOS devices in the coming weeks.

Apple is expected to reveal iRadio at WWDC which begins today.

[AllThingsD]

June 10, 2013
Apple Puts Up ‘7’ And ‘X’ Banners Ahead Of WWDC

When Apple crossed over the 50 billion app download mark last month a press release hinted that they’ll show the world “new versions of iOS and OS X.” The much anticipated iOS 7 recently appeared in a GFXBench database and confirmed its presence.

Banners have been going up outside Moscone Center in San Francisco this week and the latest is a simplistic design showing the number 7, which basically confirms that we’ll see Apple finally unveil iOS 7. Other banners stated that WWDC is “where a whole new world is developing.”

Jony Ive, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design, is the man behind the new foray into iOS 7. This has been rumoured to be “black, white, and flat all over.”

Image Courtesy : Apple Insider

Apple is rumored to announce upgraded MacBooks featuring Intel’s new Haswell processors at the event. More specifically, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has been reliable in predicting Apple’s product announcements, expects a slimmer 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro model with upgraded FaceTime camera, and a dual microphone MacBook Air, to be introduced.

Apple’s official WWDC 2013 app for iOS is already available. WWDC 2013 is scheduled to run from June 10 to 14, with a keynote slated to kick off the event on Monday. We’ll bring you all the details as WWDC 2013 unfolds.

[Apple Insider]

June 8, 2013
Report : Apple To Launch iRadio At WWDC, Inks Deal With Warner Music

The New York Times reports that Apple is still hoping to launch its much-rumored streaming music service at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next week, pressing to complete deals with record labels that would allow the company to announce the service.

Apple’s service, a Pandora-like feature that would tailor streams of music to each user’s taste, has been planned since at least last summer.

The Cupertino based company successfully signed a deal over the weekend with Warner Music Group and its publishing arm, Warner/Chappell Music, for recorded music rights and music publishing rights.

About a month ago, it signed another deal with Universal Music Group for its recorded music rights. Negotiations are still going on with Sony, which has been going back and forth with Apple over some specifics about features built into Apple’s product.

iRadio streaming music service is said to be a free, ad-supported offering, with the labels reportedly seeking similar revenue rates to that seen from Pandora, although Apple is seeking more extensive licenses to provide more flexibility for users.

The Wall Street Journal has more on Apple’s deal with Warner:

Under the deal, Apple will give Warner Music Group’s publishing arm 10% of ad revenue — more than twice what Internet radio giant Pandora Media Inc. pays major music publishers. Warner’s terms with Apple could pave the way for other major publishing deals to follow.

Apple has indicated to people involved in the negotiations that the service could be announced at its annual developers conference, which begins June 10 in San Francisco.

[NYTimes, WSJ, MacRumours]

June 3, 2013
Apple iPhone’s India Sales Grows By 400%, Are EMI Schemes To Thank?

India has become Apple’s test bed for emerging markets, with the company rolling out a series of discounts and payment plans in order to entice purchases and improve its market standing in the 1.24 billion people market.

According to analyst Sunil Tirumalai, Apple’s equal monthly installment (EMI) and cash-back programs have jump-started sales in India, which used to be around 70,000 to 80,000 units per month before the aggressive pricing schemes, reports Economic Times.

These efforts are paying off as iPhone sales have risen 400 percent over the past four months.

Tirumalai says the benefit of the new initiatives is clear, “The 4-9 percent implicit discount coupled with the option of easy EMIs spread over 6-12 months became popular. Within a few months, our discussions with handset retailers indicated that iPhone sales went up 3-4x, forcing companies to respond.”

Based on those numbers, Apple only trails Samsung in terms of overall sales in the country. Samsung, however, offers a much larger range of devices in India, including entry-level smartphones and feature phones which attract less well-to-do buyers.

Apple’s recent success in India also followed a rebranding of the iPhone as an affordable product rather than a high-end luxury item.

Apple had introduced the cash back scheme for its iPhone 4. Under this scheme consumers had to bring in their old smartphone and could take home a brand new iPhone 4 at a minimum discount of Rs. 7,000. As per the conditions of the scheme, Rs. 5,000 was the cash back discount given and the additional Rs. 2,000 was the minimum resale value pegged for the old smartphone.

If the consumers tried to exchange a smartphone, whose resale value was more than Rs. 2,000 then the effective cash back to them was Rs. 5,000 plus the value the resale of the phone. Initially, the scheme was launched for just 15 days. However, given the popularity the scheme was extended till May.

Even now, Apple is running a scheme, where in students are eligible for Rs. 7,777 discount on purchase of Apple iPhone 4. Apart from this, the American Express card holders can get an additional 10 percent on purchasing this smartphone.

Apple also sells older models of the handset in India that pre-date the iPhone 4 and are not officially sold by the company in any other country.

[The Economic Times]

June 1, 2013
Jony Ive’s iOS 7 To Be “Black, White And Flat All Over”

Apple’s new iOS 7 will be unveiled at the upcoming WWDC on June 10th. Rumours are that the OS will receive a complete “software overhaul” and scrap the “realistic images” in favour of a “flat” design. 9to5Mac, who’s been incredibly reliable over the years, has written an in-depth piece from insider sources about the upcoming features within iOS 7.

The site reports that the OS will come with a few new features, but mostly sport design enhancements that will see it be “black, white, and flat all over.” Apparently Jony Ive, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design, wanted to shed the “texture-heavy” iOS of past years (designed by Steve Jobs and former iOS chief Scott Forstall) by making “his mark on every corner of the operating system.”

Some other notable takeaways are that the lock screen will “drop the shiny, transparent time bar on the top of the Lock screen in exchange for a shine-free, black interface. Additionally, the square-grid for entering a pin code has been replaced with round, black buttons with white text and white borders.” In addition, the drop down notifications will be changed to a dark grey/black colour with white text.

As 9to5Mac reports, in software design meetings with Apple’s iOS designers, accompanied by Apple’s Human Interface vice president Greg Christie, Ive has shared his reasoning behind his distaste for the texture-heavy (skeuomorphic) interfaces heralded by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and former iOS chief Scott Forstall.

Ive stated that software designs filled with physical metaphors do not stand the test of time, according to a person familiar with the design meetings.

According to the report.

The iPhone’s Notes app has replaced the yellow notepad design for a flat white look. Apps such as Mail, Calendar, and Maps have also gained a more uniformed look with flat white textures.

While the core elements of those apps are mostly white, each app has been given a unique button color. Essentially, each app has a white base with a respective color theme.

For example, the Calendar app could potentially have red buttons, while Messages could have green controls.

Apple is apparently also testing new panels/widgets that could see easy access to WiFi, Airplane Mode, and Bluetooth (like on Android).

[9to5Mac]

May 24, 2013
Samsung will lose the Apple Chip supply contract for 2014 iPhone Lineup

Apple is constantly trying to end all relationships with Smartphone manufacturer Samsung, including the supply for most of the parts for iPhones. According to reports Apple is trying to move production of Apple chipsets to TSMC for the next generation of iPhones.

This will be a huge loss of revenue for the production division for Samsung, leaving out key investment into their chip making business, making innovation of next generation chipsets extremely expensive for the Korean company.

Another confirmation to this report is the fact that TSMC has significantly increased the production capacity of its plants hinting at an expected increase in orders.

Samsung will however continue to make chipsets for this years iPhone devices will be announced later this year.

May 7, 2013
iOS 6.1.4 Update For iPhone 5 Released, Tweaks Speakerphone Profile

Apple on Thursday released iOS 6.1.4, an iPhone 5 only update, which delivers an “updated audio profile for speakerphone”.

Normally Apple incorporates security fixes into iOS updates, but at present there’s no word as to whether this update patches any vulnerabilities.

According to the change log, the 6.1.4 update brings ‘updated audio profile for loudspeaker’. The update is just 11.5MB in size, should only take a few minutes for the download process to fully complete, and currently available for download on the iPhone 5. If you have any other iOS device, don’t bother checking as it’s not available for them.

To update your iPhone 5 to the latest and greatest software, open Settings -> General -> Software Update and tap Download and Install when the update appears. You can also connect your phone to your computer and apply the update from iTunes, or download it manually from Apple’s support site.

The last update, 6.1.3, was released in March and fixed six flaws, four of which were found by the jailbreaking hacking crew evad3rs who used the flaws in a popular jailbreak for iOS 6.0 to 6.2.

Apple engineers are racing to finish iOS 7 to preview it the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference this June, according to Bloomberg.

iOS 7 should hit devices around October.

May 3, 2013